⸂This way!⸃

Emilia readjusted the children in her arms as they followed the teenager through the house and down, down, down. Little feet slapped against the floor, alongside her and V’s heavy steps, the man also weighed down by the children in his own arms.

So many children. Each time she had returned from dropping a child into the house, more little faces had found their way to V, the teenager having taken it upon herself to brave the stampede and find anyone else who needed help. Luckily, she had also found another, slightly older teenager, who had been confident enough to help Emilia transfer the children V—and later another adult—handed upwards.

She’d lost track of how many children they had accumulated. The man and other teenager who had joined them had stayed behind, lest anyone else appear who needed help. The younger teenage girl had made them promise to follow soon, but something in their eyes had told Emilia they wouldn’t be following so easily.

The eyes of people who would die, hoping to save even one more person. She’d seen that look in countless people’s eyes, on the front lines. In the beginning, she had tried to force them to move—to try to save themselves, even if it meant someone might die because they had left.

Then, too many people had died, her words having convinced someone to leave them behind. Their life wasn’t worth the dozens who had died because they saved themself—not to them, anyways. They hadn’t been able to live with that guilt, and then they’d been dead anyways, and Emilia had stopped trying to convince people to leave.

Usually.

Sometimes, she couldn’t leave the people she loved behind. She’d knocked someone out once, carried them out of the front lines. They hated her now, for making them leave that suicide mission alive—for all the other little perceived injustices she’d been party to during the war. Generally, she didn’t really care—she kinda hated them in return now. Too many terrible words had been spit out between them, words and feelings that couldn’t be taken back—that couldn’t be forgiven, even within the context of vitriol spoken in the midst of tragedy and grief.

Emilia didn’t regret saving them from their own stupidity, but she did mourn the person they had been before that moment. Then again, given all the things they said to her the last time they’d seen each other, maybe that person had already hated her. Maybe, he had just been keeping that hatred bottled up inside. She certainly hadn’t thought him that hateful until after the war ended, years after that moment of forcing him to keep on living.

It was ironic, that some of his last words to her had been about how she should keep living because people had died so she could live. For a long time, she had thought it something kind to say—her former friend forcing her to continue on living because of guilt and obligation to the dead. One last kindness before cruelty slipped out of him in unstoppable waves that crashed over her balance and drove her to run.

Now… now, she wasn’t so sure those words hadn’t been the most selfish thing he had said to her that day. “Live, so you can continue to wallow in your guilt. You do not deserve to escape this world through death.”

“Emilia?”

Emilia startled out of her wandering thoughts, glad that out of all the skills she had lost in the last decade, her ability to mindlessly follow the leader wasn’t one of them. “Hm?” she hummed at V, blinking at him and the increasingly dark world around them. Somewhere along the way, house walls had shifted to rock, light eating material speckled through them.

“Are you okay?” the man asked, shooting her a concerned look as he readjusted the children before the tunnel they were following began to tilt steeply downwards.

Ahead of them, one of the children slipped, feet sliding out from under them, their butt dragging painful over the ground. Two of their friends skidded to a stop and bolted back to them, hauling them upwards, and off they continued.

⸂Am I bleeding?⸃ the boy asked, trying to check their pants for any stains.

One of their friends checked, shaking their head and telling the boy that he was fine. Either the child was a fantastic liar, or they hadn’t noticed the red splotch slowly growing and then beginning to disappear on the boy’s behind. Within moments, the blood had completely returned to the boy, the red mark gone and whatever scuff had marred his butt likely sealed up.

“I’m fine,” Emilia told V, shooting him what she was certain wasn’t a convincing smile. “Mind is just wandering to that pair we left behind.”

“To die, trying to protect people?” V asked. He didn’t sound happy about it, but there was a note of resignation in his voice, just as there was in her thoughts.

“Yeah,” she sighed, adding in vague details about her thoughts—about the friend she had saved and the shattered relationship they now had, the blame he put on her for nearly everything bad that had ever happened to him and the people he loved since they had met. To her surprise, V’s expression turned so dark that her feet momentarily stalled. “V?”

The other visitor shook him head, the children in his arms glancing nervously up at him. He smiled at them, telling him he was fine and sorry, despite the fact that they obviously couldn’t hear him. His smile, awkwardly dimpled as it was, was disarming, however, and the children tucked themselves against him once again.

Stolen novel; please report.

“It’s not fair for someone to put so much blame on you,” V said, tone sharp, even if his expression had mellowed out.

Emilia almost laughed. “How do you know I don’t deserve the blame? Maybe I’m a terrible person in real life.”

V’s gaze shot to her, wide and horrified. He looked like he was about to say something, perhaps about to spill his identity in order to assure her that he did know she wasn’t a person deserving of so much blame, when the children running in front of them began to stop.

Emilia and V’s steps slowed, their eyes scanning the area and the gaggle of children for anything amiss. Ahead of them, the tunnel of the cave system they were wandering through split off into three directions, their leader looking down each path with all but panicked eyes.

Despite the entrance to Zach’s underground magic school having been hidden, they had learned that most of the buildings within the cities had their own connection to the cave system, although many only had small, stone cellars that weren’t directly connected to the main system. Some sort of bomb shelter—the bomb in this case being the blood curse—although most were used for storage these days. Luckily, the building they had broken into was connected to the main system, and they were currently following the young teenager—a girl who had testily introduced herself as ⸂Gale, not Galentia,⸃ to much laughter from the other children—as she navigated the maze of tunnels.

Occasionally, one of the younger children had asked if they were lost, Gale snapping back that of course they weren’t. Even through her distracted attention, Emilia hadn’t been completely convinced, but being lost in a maze of caves was better than being out in whatever hurricane of blood and power was surely raging above them. Besides, even without asking, she knew V had been making his own mental map of the area. Worst case, they’d have to turn around and make their way back rather than get… wherever Gale was taking them. Had she actually told them where she was taking them? Wherever it was, unless they were hit with a miracle, Emilia doubted they were liable to find it with how concerned the girl now looked.

That was fine. Eventually, they’d find some sort of exit, she was sure, especially since they hadn’t done anything as insane as her and V, during their own pitch-black cavern adventure. No impossible to descend rock walls here!

What was more concerning was the lack of anyone else around. As much as their conversations with Gale and the children were largely one-sided—although everyone seemed to enjoy watching the combination of Emilia’s signing and V’s charades—a number of them had been chatty and forthcoming with information about the city and the cave system beneath it.

While not all buildings connected to the main cave system, enough did that it felt like they should have seen at least a few more people seeking refuge within them, especially considering that the city ran evacuation drills. One of the children had suggested it might be the time of day, nearly all adults out working or shopping, but no one seemed convinced: surely at least some of the businesses had access points, where employees and customers could have disappeared below when the chaos started.

Yet, there was no one. In the brief moments of silence, every member of the group reflecting on the death and carnage occurring far above their heads, only their feet and the occasional sob echoed through the tunnel. No other sounds reached them. There were no distant voices bouncing off the stone towards them, no sobs from unknown people or even distant screams from outside, leaking through entrance doors left ajar by panicking locals. Emilia might have assumed that aethervoices didn’t allow for such things, but she had heard it before, and she knew they should be hearing such things, but they weren’t.

Now, with everyone watching Gale, barely whispering to each other as they waited for her to pick a path, there was nothing. It was eerie and felt wrong in a way that Emilia could only chalk up to instinct and years of experience on the battlefield.

Something was wrong, and the only thing Emilia could think of was the way they had entered the library labyrinth: abruptly. There had been no warning as the library transitioned into endless hallway, no escape once they noticed.

“Is it just me—” she started to ask.

“Or is this eerily similar to the labyrinth we just managed to escape?”

Great, so they were thinking the same thing. That didn’t bode well for this being anything else—something that wouldn’t be terrible with so many children they couldn’t properly communicate with, relying on them to keep them safe. That was the worst thing: they had been trying to keep these kids safe, and instead, it seemed that they had accidentally led them into an even more dangerous situation.

“Key told me these places tend to focus on being difficult for visitors,” Emilia told the other visitor, her eyes glued to the back of one of the older children, one who seemed to be growing increasingly agitated as Gale looked wildly between paths. “If we leave them, the labyrinth might just guide them out…”

“Or eat them.”

They’d briefly discussed Cade’s Enclave babysitter being mysteriously eaten in the library labyrinth. Emilia had been half expecting to find him with Rin and Key, being held hostage by the boss. She’d been equal parts relieved and put off when they hadn’t found him. If Taoran had been similarly eaten when he attacked their trio, she would have assumed the labyrinth didn’t want any locals taking out visitors within it—it seemingly hadn’t had any issue with her and Cade fighting, after all. He hadn’t been eaten, however, and even with both her and V’s brains combined—sleepy as they had been—they could think of no reason why Cade’s babysitter had been taken out by the labyrinth and Taoran hadn’t.

“Let’s… not think about any of the kids being eaten by phantom monsters…” Emilia half-hissed at her friend, glaring when she noticed the slight amusement dancing in his eyes. There was a healthy dose of fear in there as well, but morbid jokes about the lives of children went a bit far.

Ahead of them, Gale and the agitated boy began to argue, the boy’s voice somehow managing to crack with puberty. How, Emilia had no idea—she’d never gotten the chance to ask Rin or Key about what dictated the intonations of aethervoices, or why locals sighed or hummed or did a thousand other little sounds that seemed to be more tied to people who spoke verbally. Stars knew that the people she knew who signed didn’t have any particular signs for sighing or humming, although their signs could adopt a more specific style or flow to express emotions a verbal speaker would use tone to convey.

“We should probably make sure they don’t kill each other,” she sighed, abruptly passing her children to V and stepping forward to make sure the pair didn’t kill each other over being lost in a magical maze.